This weekend Margie and I took a day away, to be together,
to talk, and be refreshed. We determined not to hurry but to enjoy the
leisureliness of the time, to let things unfold quietly. Our topics of
conversation were only partially determined ahead of time—including some
speaking and writing we are working on—but that consumed only a portion of the
day. The rest of the time we talked about whatever came up, and enjoyed times
of silence together.
We drove to Minneapolis, and so began talking on the hour’s
drive from Toad Hall to our first destination: Black Sheep Coffee. We ordered
lattes (Margie’s was soy) and as always, found the atmosphere lovely and
refreshing. Then we drove to The Museum of Russian Art to see two shows: “Concerning
the Spiritual in Russian Art” and “Jewish Life in the Russian Empire:
Photographs from the Museum of Ethnography, St. Petersburg, Russia.” Lovely,
poignant, moving. Before having dinner at the Himalayan Restaurant (very good),
we wandered over to Lake Harriet, found a bench near the water and sat in the
sun.
The bench near Lake Harriet was situated between walking and
biking paths, so bikes swept by just behind us and people walked or jogged just
in front of where we sat. All ages were represented, some strolling leisurely,
some walking dogs or pushing baby strollers, others in pairs or little groups.
After sitting there for a while we realized we were hearing snatches of
conversations, so I started jotting down what we could make out.
(boy) …I didn’t know
if you needed a drink…
(woman) …I just don’t
feel like going to work tomorrow…
(woman) …they bought a
new coffee table… (woman) …and they
redid the tile, and they redid the bathroom, and the hall, and it looks
wonderful…
(man) …Triska! Triska!
No! No!...
(woman) …I said I was
definitely concerned about the conversation…
(man) …You can go
boating out there on this lake? (man) Sail
boating.
(woman) …so far my
white sheers go well enough…
(woman) …my friend and
I were starry-eyed…
(woman) …my bike is
really slow. I’ve got it in the highest gear though…
(man) …my flag holder
in front has created…
(woman) …I’m going to
start digging…
(man) …I didn’t really
feel good but I’m doing it anyway…
(man) …is that an
answer? (woman) What?...
(boy) …give me my bike
back, c’mon, give me my bike back…
(man) …I didn’t know
if that was the trade-in value…
(woman) …my shoulders
are sore, but I don’t know…
(woman) …black and
red, black, red dot, red dot…
(boy) …I need to go to
the bathroom (woman) Well right now
we are kind of moseying…
(man) … (laughs) I
should probably creep down (laughs)…
(boy) …faster, Dad…
(man) …and why is
that? (woman) It’s kind of cool. No…
(man) …no, we really
do (woman) I thought your mother took
care of it (man) Yeah, I did too…
(man) …another alternative
is to say to the group…
(girl) …zippity
zippity do…
(man) …I know it is so
annoying (woman) Yeah, Heather
watches people…
(woman) …is she
celebrating Mother’s Day? (man) Yeah,
my sister knows this seedy bar…
(woman) …my cousin
won’t make a dessert…
(young woman on cell phone) …so it is, like, possible, and she said, oh gosh yes, and I was like,
because I told her so, and she was like, literally overwhelmed…
And that’s the news from here.
This is my final blog in 2011, time running out as it is,
and I can think of no better post than to let Walker Percy have the final word.
I could say that Percy is one of my heroes, which is true, but the way the word
“hero” is overused today makes that comment feel like I’m in some way
trivializing his memory, which is something I refuse to do. Walker Percy
(1916-1990) was a novelist and essayist who lived in Louisiana, and if you have
not read him you need to make a resolution this year to correct that error.
Begin with The Second Coming (1980),
then read The Moviegoer (1961), and
then… well, if you begin with those two novels you’ll read the rest on your
own.
In Signposts in a
Strange Land (1991) a number of Percy’s essays were collected, edited by
Patrick Samway. The essays fall into three categories: Life in the South,
Science, Language, Literature, and Morality and Religion. As an Epilogue Samway
wisely included “Questions They Never Asked Me,” a witty, wide-ranging, and insightful
interview in which Percy both posed the questions and provided the answers. It
is from this interview (pp. 416-417) that I take the following excerpt.
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Do you regard yourself as a Catholic novelist?
Since
I am a Catholic and a novelist, it would seem to follow that I am a Catholic
novelist.
What kind of Catholic are you?
Bad.
No. I mean, are you liberal or conservative?
I no
longer know what those words mean.
Are you a dogmatic Catholic or an open-minded Catholic?
I
don’t know what that means, either. Do you mean do I believe the dogma that the
Catholic Church proposes for belief?
Yes.
Yes.
How is such a belief possible in this day and age?
What
else is there?
What do you mean, what else is there? There is humanism,
atheism, agnosticism, Marxism, behaviorism, materialism, Buddhism, Muhammadanism,
Sufism, astrology, occultism, theosophy.
That’s what
I mean.
To say nothing of Judaism and Protestantism.
Well,
I would include them along with the Catholic Church in the whole peculiar
Jewish-Christian thing.
I don’t understand. Would you exclude, for example,
scientific humanism as a rational and honorable alternative?
Yes
Why?
It’s not
good enough.
Why not?
This
life is much too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and
then be asked what you make of it and have to answer, “Scientific humanism.”
That won’t do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore, I
take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite
mystery and the infinite delight; i.e., God. In fact, I demand it. I refuse to settle
for anything less. I don’t see why anyone should settle for less than Jacob,
who actually grabbed aholt of God and wouldn’t let go until God identified
himself and blessed him.
Grabbed aholt?
A Louisiana
expression.
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Happy New Year—may 2012 be rich in evidences of grace and
glimmers of glory for you.
The esteemed bishop of Hippo reflects on the irony of enjoying the theater.
“Stage plays also captivated me, with their sights full of the images of my own miseries: fuel for my own fire. Now, why does a man like to be made sad by viewing doleful and tragic scenes, which he himself could not by any means endure? Yet, as a spectator, he wishes to experience from them a sense of grief, and in this very sense of grief his pleasure consists. What is this but wretched madness? For a man is more affected by these actions the more he is spuriously involved in these affections. Now, if he should suffer them in his own person, it is the custom to call this misery. But when he suffers with another, then it is called compassion. But what kind of compassion is it that arises from viewing fictitious and unreal sufferings? The spectator is not expected to aid the sufferer but merely to grieve for him. And the more he grieves the more he applauds the actor of these fictions. If the misfortunes of the characters—whether historical or entirely imaginary—are represented so as not to touch the feelings of the spectator, he goes away disgusted and complaining. But if his feelings are deeply touched, he sits it out attentively, and sheds tears of joy.”
St Augustine in Confessions [3.2.2]
Dave Barry on travel:
“We travel because, no matter how comfortable we are at home, there’s a part of us that wants—that needs—to see new vistas, take new tours, obtain new traveler’s checks, buy new souvenirs, order new entrees, introduce new bacteria into our intestinal tracts, learn new words for ‘transfusion,’ and have all the other travel adventures that make us want to french-kiss our doormats when we finally get home.”
Dave Barry on grocery labels:
“When I purchase a food item at the supermarket, I can be confident that the label will state how much riboflavin is in it. The United States government requires this, and for a good reason, which is: I have no idea. I don’t even know what riboflavin is. I do know I eat a lot of it. For example, I often start the day with a hearty Kellogg's strawberry Pop-Tart, which has, according to the label, a riboflavin rating of 10 percent. I assume this means that 10 percent of the Pop-Tart is riboflavin. Maybe it’s the red stuff in the middle. Anyway, I’m hoping riboflavin is a good thing; if it turns out that it’s a bad thing, like ‘riboflavin’ is the Latin word for ‘cockroach pus,’ then I am definitely in trouble.”
The source of both quotes can be found here.